The Book of Secrets - Deepak Chopra [15]
A feeling that I am not what I seem to be, that I have been playing a part that isn’t the real me.
A feeling that something lies beyond the sky or behind the mirror.
THINKING
“I know more than I think I do.”
“I need to find out what’s real.”
“I need to find out who I really am.”
My mind is becoming less restless; it wants to calm down.
My inner voices have become very quiet.
My internal dialogue has suddenly stopped.
ACTIONS
I suddenly sense that my actions are not my own.
I sense a greater power acting through me.
My actions seem to symbolize who I am and why I’m here.
I am acting out of complete integrity.
I gave up control and what I wanted simply came to me.
I gave up the struggle, and instead of falling apart, things got better.
My actions are part of a plan I can barely glimpse, but I know it must exist.
BEING
I realize that I am cared for.
I realize that my life has purpose, that I matter.
I sense that random events are not random but form subtle patterns.
I see that I am unique.
I realize that life has the ability to run itself.
I feel drawn to the center of things.
I realize with wonder that life is infinitely worthwhile.
This may seem like a very abstract list because everything on it is about awareness. I didn’t record the thousands of other thoughts, feelings, and actions that centered on outside things. Of course, like everyone else, I was thinking about my next appointment or rushing to it, feeling harried in traffic, being happy or out of sorts, confused or certain, focused or distracted. All of that is like the contents of a mental suitcase. People stuff their suitcases with thousands of things. Yet awareness is not a suitcase, nor is it the things you stuff inside.
Awareness is just itself—pure, alive, alert, silent, and full of potential. Sometimes you come close to experiencing that pure state, and at these times one of the hints I’ve listed, or something similar, comes to the surface instead of lying hidden out of sight. Some hints are palpable; they arise as undeniable sensations in the body. Others arise at a subtle level that is difficult to verbalize: a shiver of something unexpectedly catches your attention. If you notice even one such hint, you have in your hand a thread that could lead beyond thought, feeling, or action. If there is only one reality, every clue must lead eventually to the same place where the laws of creation operate freely, which is awareness itself.
Once you start out with a promising hint, how can you wrest free from the ego’s grip? The ego fiercely protects its view of the world, and we’ve all experienced how wispy and fleeting any experience can be when it doesn’t fit our ingrained belief system. Sir Kenneth Clark, the renowned English art historian, recounts in his autobiography about an epiphany in a church when he suddenly realized, with total clarity, that an all-embracing presence was filling him. He sensed beyond thought a reality that was sublime, filled with light, loving, and sacred.
At that moment he had a choice: He could pursue this transcendental reality or he could go back to art. He chose art, without apology. Art, even if it fell far short of higher reality, was Clark’s earthly love. He was choosing one infinity over another—the infinity of beautiful objects over the infinity of invisible awareness. (There is a witty cartoon showing a fingerpost standing at the fork of a trail. One sign points toward “God,” the other toward “Discussions about God.” In this case the signs could be changed to “God” and “Pictures of God.”)
Many other people have made similar choices. In order to displace the physical world you already know, a hint must expand. The threads of experience must weave a new pattern because, as separate strands, they are too fragile to compete with the familiar drama of pleasure and pain that grips all of us.
Consider the list again. The boundaries between the categories are blurry. There is only the slightest difference between feeling that I am safe, for example, and knowing that I am safe.